It Won't Be The Same
by AGoldenCharm
Summary: Tina's always figured that this would be the next landmark of her relationship with Mike...


"Don't you think Roxie sounds kinda like a stripper name?"

Mike explodes with laughter, "Okay, _ouch! _I was just making a suggestion!"

Tina giggles, swaying her legs back and forth over the edge of the doctor's table. The stirrups that are pushed to the side are still freaking her out a bit, but she tries her best to ignore them as she and Mike debate over baby names. They've already decided on Nick if it's a boy but twenty-some girl names later, all Mike can manage is Roxie. Which Tina _swears_ sounds like a stripper name.

They're waiting for Dr. Allen to come back to confirm whether or not she's really pregnant because two pregnancy tests and one very emotional morning definitely warranted a trip to her gynecologist. In fact, they've done this twice before already. And both times have been false pregnancies- something to do with a malfunctioning pregnancy test or something. So this time she took two just be sure and sure enough, both of them claimed to be positive. She's cried a bucketful of tears already today and all she needs is Dr. Allen's confirmation to expel another bucket's worth, which scares her a little because she's not even at the stage where pregnancy hormones prevail yet and she's already emotional out of her mind.

"What about Alicia?" Mike breaks the silence, walking back over to the table and taking a seat in the empty swivel chair nearby.

Tina taps her chin, "Hmm. I like it. It's pretty and practical."

"Like you," Mike gives her a goofy grin.

"You're a dork."

"_Tina_, this is gonna be so great. I already got the okay from the landlord to turn the guest room into a nursery. He said we could paint it whatever color we want as long as we don't stain the carpet," Mike says giddily.

"Really?" Tina beams, "That's great! Oh and my mom said we could use my old bassinet. They've kept it all these years, can you believe it?"

"We'll have to get it shipped out here," Mike frowns, "That might be a bit of a pain."

"Well, I was thinking we could visit Lima in a couple of months anyway. To break the news to everyone, hopefully?"

Mike smiles warmly, running his fingers along her back like he always does. "Of course, T. And there _will_ be news. _Good _news."

"Right. Right, there will be," Tina breathes as steadily as she can. She looks down at Mike, who's gazing back up at her with big, excited eyes and maybe it's the crazy emotions running high again or something but Tina presses her lips together as firmly, trying to keep her tear ducts dry. Now would be a _horrible _time to well up. She bends down, using her finger to beckon him closer and he responds immediately, pressing his warm lips to hers briefly.

"_Mike_. I'm so excited. For... for _him_. Or _her_. And for the late nights and the pacifiers and the adorable little baby clothes that I'll probably spend way too much on."

"And its first words."

"And its first steps," Tina sighs.

Mike chuckles, "Sam's totally right. We have a huge case of baby fever."

Tina folds her arms defiantly, "We do _not_."

"T, you spent the past week surfing the internet for different kinds of diapers."

"So? I overheard you calling your mom two nights ago and freaking out over when it'll be safe to switch to formula."

Mike holds up his hands, laughing, "Guilty as charged."

"Maybe we do have baby fever," Tina giggles again. But it makes sense to her. They're twenty-seven and a lot of their friends from high school and college already have kids. In fact, one of Tina's college classmates is already thinking about having a second child.

"If being more ready for this than anything else in the world means having baby fever," Mike says softly, staring steadily at her, "Then yes. We have baby fever."

"I love you," Tina murmurs, leaning in for another kiss.

There's a knock on the door that interrupts them, jolting them apart as Dr. Allen walks in.

The first thing that Tina notices about Dr. Allen when she comes into their room is that she is _not_ smiling. Well, no. She _is_, but it's a forced, grim smile that makes Tina queasy just looking at her. Which can only mean one thing.

"Not pregnant?" Tina finally croaks. Because even though she's heard the same news _twice_ already, it still feels like a huge blow and maybe it gets worse with each time it happens or something because Tina feels like her world is collapsing all around her for the third time in the past two months and Dr. Allen hasn't even _said_ anything yet.

Dr. Allen shakes her head solemnly, frowning a little, "Mrs. Chang, I wonder... This is your third visit already, correct?"

"Y-yeah."

"I think it might be wise to perform some routine tests for you and Mr. Chang. Just to make sure everything's functioning properly."

"Y-you mean like fertility tests?" Tina stammers, her voice breaking. God, she can't cry now. Not now.

"Yes," Dr. Allen nods, ""They're routine, really. And we can get the results back to you tonight."

_Fertility tests_. Tina's always known about them, sure, but they were the kinds of things that she ignored like the sports section of their Sunday newspaper or the slight imbalance of their kitchen table. They were always _there_ but never _here_ in her life.

"O-okay," Tina says softly, glancing over at Mike, who looks positively thunderstruck.

Dr. Allen reveals a small lab cup for Mike, "Mr. Chang, if you could take this with you to room six while I attend to Mrs. Chang?"

"Sure," Mike takes the cup quietly and Tina watches as he shuffles sullenly out of the room, glancing back at Tina before shutting the door behind him.

_We're fertile. We have to be,_ Tina thinks desperately, trying to telepathically convince Mike to believe something she's not even sure if she can believe.

* * *

><p>"Baby, if you keep checking your cell phone you're going to go insane," Mike says soothingly from the bed as Tina paces back and forth, regularly checking the phone in her hands.<p>

"I know," she wails, "But Dr. Allen said we'd get a response tonight, right? I just... I just can't wait any longer..."

"I know, T," Mike pulls back the blankets, patting her usual spot with his left hand, "Just come to bed. If the phone rings, we'll answer it. If not, we'll have a peaceful night of sleep, okay?"

"_Peaceful_," Tina replies, aghast, "How can we _possibly_ sleep peacefully tonight?" But she reluctantly climbs into bed next to Mike, placing her cell phone carefully on the nightstand.

Mike flicks off the light switch and the room turns dark as Tina nestles into Mike's chest, her mind racing.

"What are we going to do... if we can't... can't...?"

"I don't know, T," Mike sighs, kissing her hair gently, "Adoption? Surrogacy if it's you? Sperm donor if it's me?"

"I know what the options are," Tina rolls her eyes even though he can't see her in the dark, "I didn't mean literally. We... we've just known that we've wanted to bear our own children for so long..."

"We'll figure it out," he murmurs softly.

"How can you be so sure?" Tina asks raggedly, "How do you just _know_ it's gonna-"

The cheesy ringtone that's plagued her phone since college sounds. It's sickeningly familiar and she stares at it, horrified, as it rings.

"Answer it!" Mike urges, his whole body tensing up around her.

"I... I can't."

Mike, being Mike, strokes her hair softly as he reaches for her cell phone and presses the talk button, holding it up to his ear.

The voice on the other end is muffled. Painfully soft and indistinguishable and half of Tina wants to just snatch the phone from his fingers and the other half of her wants to squeeze a pillow around her head so that the muffled noises cancel out completely.

"Mhmm," she can hear Mike say, "Yes, we know. Okay. Thank you so much, Dr. Allen. Yeah, good night."

Tina turns around to face him, her entire body shaking as he ends the call and places the phone back on the nightstand.

"W-well?" Tina whispers, her hands trembling as she reaches under the covers for his. It's like every fear she's had since she was five have teamed up and formed some monstrous new feeling of terror that finds it hilariously amusing to reduce her to a shaking mess of squeaks and whimpers.

"It-it's you."

Two words. Two _fucking_ words is all it takes to start the waterworks again and Tina is sick and _tired_ of the tears, especially if it means that there are no crazy hormones to blame for them. Because why are the tears even _worth _it if she has no child growing in her uterus, no baby to call hers nine months from now.

Mike is wrapping his arms around her, whispering small, broken strings of consolation but his voice keeps breaking which is disturbingly disconcerting because _he's_ always been the strong one. _He's _always been the one to comfort her ever since year one of their relationship; whenever she breaks down because there's only so much she can take, he's always rushed to her side and made things right again. And even though he's here, holding her and reassuring her that she's perfect no matter what, Tina feels... _broken_.

Because he has every right to want to hate her for this. Because she _knows_ that he's been looking forward to this almost as much as she has, if not _more_ so. She may have been teasing him about the whole thing with his mom on the phone before, but she seriously thought it was the most touching thing _ever_ to hear him freak out and gush about their unborn child to his mom, no matter how much of a momma's boy Mike could be sometimes.

_Mike_. God, Mike. He deserves so much better than this. He's been joking around about having kids since _high school_, for god's sake. And it was funny back then because she didn't exactly know that they'd still be _together _at this point, much less happily _married_ and actually thinking about having children.

And the memories come flooding back. At her graduation party back in high school when Brittany called dibs on naming their first unborn child and Tina had been horrified at the very idea (the girl's cat was named _Lord Tubbington_, for god's sake) but Mike had just shot her a meaningful look that oozed of "_just go with it_" so Tina had agreed with a small smile and Brittany had cheered, bragging for the rest of the party that she would have the most influence on the future Chang family.

During their sophomore year of college, when they had decided to pick an apartment because on campus dormitories were insanely expensive and they wanted to live together, anyway. Tina had wanted to pick the one closest to their favorite coffee shop, but Mike had shot it down. At first, Tina remembered being offended, but Mike later explained that he wanted an extra room in case they ended up having a baby before they moved to a bigger place. There was a lot of sex that night. There was something inexplicably attractive about Mike when he thought so far into their future.

During their third year in college, when they had their first pregnancy scare after a careless, drunken night of unprotected sex after a particularly rowdy party. Mike had dashed to the nearby drugstore still in his robe and with a killer hangover the morning after, and after Tina had figured out how exactly to correctly pee on the stick, they both collapsed with relief when it read negative.

The irony _destroyed_ her. Six years ago, they had been losing their minds over an accidental pregnancy. Tina had been freaking out that they would never be able to support a family while they were both still in college and Mike had been raking the apartment for aspirin because both of them had hangovers so bad that the sound of the cupboards being shut sounded like a cannon being shot from their apartment. And here they are, six years later, realizing that they could have all the _fucking_ unprotected sex in the world and they _still_ wouldn't be having their own baby.

"We can try surrogacy," Mike says quietly, massaging her shoulders carefully, "Or adoption."

"Y-yeah."

But it's not the _same_. It will never be the same. Because despite all the downsides of pregnancy- all the morning sickness, discomfort, pain, and horrors of labor- Tina can't help but realize that she's been looking forward to doing _all_ of those things with Mike since... since they got married. Hell, since whoever made the first _joke_ about them having kids. She's had mental pictures of Mike holding her hair back while she throws up in their toilet, of quiet nights when they would play classical music because Mike's mom read somewhere that it's good for the development of the baby, of both of them flipping out when she would feel the baby's first kick, of _everything_.

Tina's always figured that this was just another landmark in her relationship- no, _lifetime_- with Mike Chang. She's always worked it out in her head that no matter how painful her first pregnancy would be, she would power through her second one anyway because they've already agreed that they want at least two kids.

She's got another bucket of tears lined up and ready to go, which doesn't surprise her one bit.

It does, however, tear her heart into a million little pieces when Mike thinks she's fallen asleep and she can hear him cry softly beside her for the first and only time she's _ever_ known Mike Chang.


End file.
